Halong Bay

Cruising at Halong Bay for 2 days 1 night

A world heritage to the world, as of it's calmness sea and isles surrounding the bay

At peak season, the bay will have about 400 boats station here loaded full board of tourist

We were here at low peak season which is near to the monsoon season

So not really crowded much with the tourists 

 

Nice scenery, cool weather, a real rest and relax tour on boat.

Hanoi

 Practicing of photography in my trip to Hanoi

This trip, I was using a DSLR, shooting on manual mode

It's fun, and I love photography more and more...

 

Hoan Kiem Lake, landmark of Hanoi. It's near to Old Quarter.

Vietnam, a country with Chinese influence. Chinese temples are everywhere.

Chinese influence buildings are everywhere.

A unique souvenir shop near to Hoan Kiem Lake

 

St. Joseph Cathedral, an Europe influence church building in the city

 

Statue of Jesus 

Oh, this is me... modeling with the bic

 

 Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

The war flight crashed by Vietnamese military force during war with US

A funny scene in the city, railway in between of the shop houses

Old Quarter Hanoi

 

Old Quarter is the place with streets packed with shops selling all kinds of goods,

each street named for its primary good or service.

Street of shoes, street of clothing, street of hardware, street of plastic bag...

And we stay at the street of plastic bag, Hanoi Old Town Hotel

 

Here, I see many locals on the bicycles or motorbikes, busy with their daily life

Traffic here is messy, you need to be careful while walk on the road.

 

The wiring of the power cables are here and there, forming a complicated route.

I guess while there's power failure with the power cable, they will only tap another wire in

 

Street foods are all around the area here, but it's not cheap.

A bowl of Pho (noodle) cost at least 40000 Dong which is RM6.40 to us

And this is just the street foods, which you will be sitting on a small stool near to the road and enjoying your food. However, some foods are nice and worth trying.  

 

Selling on bicycles are commonly found here

and the bicycle is loaded with lot of stuff

Salute the lady who has to move this bicycle loaded with lot of ceramic stuff 

Shops and houses here are with narrow width and high built up with at least 2-4 floors

And this formed the area with slim tall buildings everywhere

 

Old Quarter, a unique place in Vietnam



Candi Prambanan

Another not to miss temples to visit at Jogjakarta, Candi Prambanan

We nearly miss this as of some little incident happened...

Yet, we did make the visit to the temples before leaving Jogjakarta.

It was a good one!

 

Candi Prambanan was titled as the world heritage site too

The temples history is made up of the combination of Hinduism Empire and Buddhism Empire

How they have fought for their empire, and how they have combined the power of both empires

To sustain for the most powerful empire at that time.

 

Entrance to the temple: 125,000 rupiah per person

Temples will be closed by 5pm everyday,

there's Ramayana Dance performance in the park at the evening, costing 250,000 rupiah per person

we didn't manage to watch the performance, due to our time arranged was out of schedule

and we didn't feel like watching it after viewing some comments from TripAdvisor.

We know the temples history quite well, as we hired a great tour guide, Mr. Subarto

He did much study and research on this temple and the Candi Borobudur too 

 

There are many temples here, which some were collapsed due to earthquake

Now, they are still in the progress of re-building some of the temples.

So we could see the fallen stones lying on the ground, waiting to be re-built.

The main three of them are Brahma Temple in the north, Vishnu Temple in the south, and the biggest among the three which lies between Brahma and Vishnu temples is Shiva Temple

 

A closed up on the collapsed temples.

It shall be taking a long time to re-build, as it's not easy as just build but to join up the stones based on the crafts made to the stones, it's like making up the jig-saw puzzle.

Another place we can see the great ancient masterpieces of Hinduism and Buddhism architecture

All stones were crafted and stacking up to form the temple 

 

It was a hot sunny day when we were here.

So coincidence, there are school activities conducted at the park near the temples

So there were many school kids found visiting the temples too.

 

School kids with happy faces.

This is the most happy times of every kid

I knew it as I came across the times like this too!

 

The kids were so happy while taking picture with me!

I have no idea what made them so excited.

May be it's purely the happiness they have at their age!

Kids are adorable! I am happy too!



Saraswati Borobudur

We have a wonderful trip to Jogjakarta mainly for photography at the world heritage sites,

the Candi Borobudur and the Candi Prambanan.

Landed at the Jogjakarta Adisucipto International Airport,

which is named after the hero of their national air force team.

We hired a taxi to send us to Borobudur, which took 1.5 hours for us to reach there.

It cost us 250,000 rupiah for the transfer from airport to hotel with a pit stop of  having lunch at the local famous restaurant for the famous ayam goring (fried chicken) and gudeg (boiled jackfruit with egg and cow skin)... which we found both dishes tasted moderate to us only.

 

Saraswati Borobudur, where we have stayed in for 3 nights here.

 

Quiet atmosphere in this boutique hotel

 

Luxurious classical interior of the hotel  

Statue found in the hotel, believe it would be the god of Saraswati

 

Swimming pool in the hotel, water of the pool is chilling cold. 

 

The corridor with a strong of colonial style

 

2013 ~ Year of visiting Jawa Tengah

Borobudur is located at Jawa Tengah, a small town that is not really fully developed

Tourists here mostly will be staying in the hotel, as there's nothing great and attractive in the town except for the world heritage temple, Candi Borobudur

Foods commonly found at the warung (food stall) are the Mie Ayam (chicken noodle) and Bakso (meat ball noodle). Hardly found the restaurant with tradition Jawanese dishes on the street, so we mostly dined in the hotel.

 

We hired an andong (horse buggy ride) to visit places  in this small town,

and we named the macho horse of our andong Pak Jonni (Johnny)

Andong is one of the main transportation in this small town.

My first ride of andong was interesting... while we stepped on the buggy, I was worrying that the horse won't cope with our weight and would have the buggy upside down while the horse would be whining... I was wrong, think I watched too much of cartoon! lols...

Beautiful kampong (village) scenery in this small town. 

 

I would describe this small town, a quiet and peaceful town.

It worth a visit for us to break away from the busy city life, and enjoy the quietness here.

 

Me in the month of June

~ GOING HOLIDAY ~

I just had my mid-year holiday break

I was visiting Krabi, I love travelling. Next I want to go Phuket.

holiday break always re-charge me from the busy working life and routine lifestyle

It sparks up my life!

 

This time, the holiday break was with my sister and the kids

Kind of a different one, from being with friends

But it's all fun filled!

 

We all enjoyed the holiday!

~ CITY LIFE ~



Home sweet home is always the best of my territory, my comfy place.

Sleep, eat, play, rest, work, clean... all happen in this place.

 

Project after holiday, cleaning my dressing room cum working room.

It's so clean and tidy now! I am happy now!

 

Enjoying good healthy and tasty homecook.

Homecook is always better and cheaper as compare eating out there.

So we cook more!

 

Yet, occasionally... we did dine out.

Finding good foods is still going on.

 

Dining out with good friend is a must

Sharing of good foods, good talks and we are good friends forever.

 

We are having hot and hazy days recently,

Chilling out with beers wasn't really chill me off.

Thinking of soaking in a pool with the beer might be working better.

But it's adviced to cut down all out-door activities;

Emm, I shall have the beer in the bath tub then...

Too bad, my house got no bath tub!

 

Cheer... life is precious!

Keep up the good fun way of living!

Happy go lucky... that's my life always!

 

 



 



I Love Beach

I love beach with blue sky, white cloud, crystal clear sea

I found peace, relax, and calm when I am at the beach

This holiday, I came to Krabi and have had the islands tour

 

First islands tour was the Krabi 4 Islands, Andaman Sea

Pranang Cave, Poda Island, Chicken Island and Tup Island

We hired a long tail boat at THB2200, for the half day tour to the islands

 

Pranang Cave, is an island with beautiful sandy beach, we enjoyed walking on this beautiful beach

There is some exclusive nice resort at this island

Poda Island is an island which is lack of maintenance, nothing special here

we just stopped a few minutes in this lack of maintenance island

Tup Island is a beautiful small island which it's connected to Chicken Island

During low tide of the sea (at 1pm-2pm), we walked on the sandbanks cross over to Chicken Island

Island on the left is Chicken Island, Island on the right is Tup Island

 Aonang Beach is the long wide beach at Krabi Aonang

Tourists like to hang around at this beach, and there are hotels and souvenir shops along this beach.

 

On another day, we joined the Phi Phi Islands tour at THB1100 per-person

This trip, we were on speed boat as there are many bays and islands to visit to

And the bays and islands were so crowded by tourists

Reason being is Phi Phi Islands is reachable by tourists from Krabi and Phuket

Bamboo Island is named after of the bamboo trees on the island

An island that we can swim at the crystal clear sea, and we swam!

 

Then we were having sightseeing of Pileh Bay, a beautiful lagoon.

Viking Cave where the local get their bird nest here.

Snorkeling at the Lohsamah Bay and Hin Klarng open sea

Yet, marine life and coral here is not beatable with the one at Redang Island

Visiting to the famous bay, Maya Bay where the movie 'The Beach' was filmed here

Bit disappointed as the bay was crowded by tourist, boat was stopping here for 30 minutes only



 

Another shoot on the bay, with less tourists

This is a beautiful bay, covered by cliffs where there made an entrance to the bay

Crystal clear sea, soft sandy beach made this a perfect island 



 

Beaches - one of the beautiful nature in the world. I love beach.